Kicking away the energy ladder – How environmentalism destroys hope for the poorest

There is a new white-paper out from The GWPF that illustrates the damage being done to people in poorer countries by environmentalists’ obsession with decarbonization in their imaginary quest to stave off global warming. As Dr. John Christy once said:

The report, by eminent epidemiologist Mikko Paunio, says that international bodies and NGOs are trying to prevent poor countries from expanding their use of conventional fuels, have abandoned the so-called “energy ladder” — the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialised nations.

As Dr Paunio explains, this will have devastating consequences:

“Indoor air pollution from domestic fires kills millions every year. But instead of helping poor people to climb the energy ladder and clean the air in their communities, the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”

What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on power stations, industry and cars, as a way to prevent any shift to industrial power production. As Dr Paunio makes clear, most air pollution in poor countries is in fact caused by burning low-quality biofuels and coal in domestic stoves:

“Trying to blame power stations for indoor air pollution might make greens feel they are saving the planet, but the reality is that they are allowing millions of deaths from air pollution to continue. The body count is going to rival that of the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century.”

Executive summary

Domestic combustion of solid (bio)fuels is by far the number one global pollution problem. 4.3 million deaths annually are directly attributable to indoor air pollution (IAP) according to the World Health Organization. Domestic combustion of solid biofuels kills almost six million people per year when its effects on ambient air quality are also taken into consideration.

The so called ‘energy ladder’ was introduced as away of understanding how deaths from IAP might be prevented. The energy ladder seeks to reproduce the experience of rich countries, where households moved away from biofuels and were increasingly connected to electric grids or district heating systems, solving the IAP problem for good.

However, ever-growing resistance from the environmental movement has removed this beneficial approach from the development agenda. Environmentalists fear that by taking steps upwards on the energy ladder, from dirty solid fuels such as cow dung or crop residues, and towards use of electricity, poor countries would become wealthier and so increase their energy use and their carbon intensity. They have managed to persuade all important multilateral development bodies and the WHO to drop the energy ladder entirely. Instead, they are now coercing the poorest countries to adopt utopian energy policies based on renewables. The result is that combatting IAP in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, is becoming impossible.

Aggressive decarbonization is now high on the political agenda. Contrary to the widely disseminated claims of important global actors, this will not solve the problem of IAP.Moreover, it will hamper the expansion of electric grids, which is a critical prerequisite for delivering adequate water supplies, without which it will be impossible to reproduce the public health miracle experienced in the rich countries.

These ‘ambitious’ global climate mitigation policies leave environmental health problems amongst the poor unaddressed and will result in the loss of over 200 million lives by 2050. They are also unlikely – even in theory – to prevent the 250,000 annual deaths that the WHO speculates will be attributable to climate change between 2030 and 2050: high-quality IPCC-linked research has recently shown that solid biomass combustion actually increases CO2 emissions, at least over the next 100 years, compared to fossil fuels.

Being an environmentalist is different from supporting AGW theory. It’s an intentional misrepresentation to equate the two groups, which don’t necessarily have the same values.

What is an “environmentalist”? How would you characterize them? Is there a unified environmentalist movement? I’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts. Not just insults about some ill-defined group, though,

I tend to use “green” to refer to the political mass movement, as distinct from concern about the environment in general. It fits the definition of a “mass movement” in Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” in being quasi-religious in demanding adherence to the creed of the movement.
The greens have been around since at least the early 1960’s, with Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring”. Most of the early concern was over chemicals and nuclear, but many of the same people shifted to climate change as a major tenet.

How about you lead off?
Name your environmental organization and then their stance on “climate change”.
Question one, do they define this term?
what precisely do they mean by this in plain English?

The big “names” of the environmental movement all embraced Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming decades ago,although they now use “climate change” their context says C.A.G.W.
Following this trail leads to gang green, GreenPeace being a prime example of lust for power and money causing a complete abandonment of ethical standards.
Best seen in their court pleading here in Canada.

Modern Environmentalists self identify, in case you have failed to notice,so there is no need of
“Not just insults about some ill-defined group, though,” other than as another sneer, by yourself, at readers here.
I am sure you “would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts” , but you will just have to read ’em like the rest of us.
My point of course;
Do you have any thoughts of your own?

So far you have offered up old talking points and lipid uninformed opinion.
Did you even bother to read the IPCC reports?
Or even the CRU emails?
Drilling down through the IPCC documents for the referenced evidence is mighty educational.
Not to mention rather shocking.

Aren’t greenies that mob of useless pothead losers who refuse to challenge Chinese destruction of coral reefs in the South China Sea, but instead pretend the carbonate buffering ocean is becoming ‘acidic’ when it’s actually alkaline?

I do not support AGW theory. I consider myself a conservationist, if not quite an environmentalist. I still drive a 2000 Geo Metro (45 mpg) for some purposes. I take metals, glass, and plastic stuff to the recycling center. I use no insecticide and as little weed killer as I can get by with. While maintaining reasonable comfort in my house, I turn off the heat as soon as I can in spring and leave the AC off until I really need it. I have learned to gauge the amount of food I buy so that I rarely, if ever, have to throw leftovers away. I do garden rather intensively (about 15,000 daylilies on a 1.35-ac lot), and I do–rarely–fertilize (mostly with my own compost) and mulch as much of the land as I can get to (I’ll be 76 in two months). If I don’t have to drive somewhere, I stay home.

With all that I do to avoid waste, I don’t join groups that advocate activism on behalf of the environmentalist cause. I read this blog and others that carry news and views containing real science. I hope that a real environmentalist tries to conserve materials, not waste them; to use water and air cleanly; and to be a good steward of the beautiful and productive world that God has given us. (Us, not merely the animals and plants.) As for the climate, it changes from hour to hour, from year to year, and every other dimension we can enumerate. In general, the climate may, indeed, be warming; and some infinitesimal fraction of that may be partly or entirely human-caused; but CO2 is not a culprit, but a blessing. So say I, and good-bye.

Thanks for your replies. I’m afraid I am still a little unclear, though, what is meant by “environmentalist.”

TOM, to you the common denominator is political advocacy, is that right? Or do you mean that environmentalists are those who want government involved in conservation of the environment? Oh, but then there’s the quasi-religious thing. I don’t know what that means. I think the idea of “religious” has been much abused by those wanting to make someone’s ideas sound like a cult, faith without evidence, devotion to authority, suppression of alternate views.

There will always be extremists at both ends of the spectrum – of any spectrum.

JOHN
“Name your environmental organization and then their stance on “climate change””
I don’t have an environmental organization. I don’t consider myself an environmentalist. Like Tom, I associate it with politics, and I don’t always agree with environmentalists – in fact, I think they have done a great deal of damage to the way the public sees climate change and options for decreasing emissions. I am interested in the science, not policy, although when it comes to the developing world I’m tired of seeing the accusation that the left is victimizing the poor, and do address that.

Modern Environmentalists self identify, in case you have failed to notice I HAVE — I DON’T KEEP UP WITH THAT STUFF ,so there is no need of
“Not just insults about some ill-defined group, though,” other than as another sneer, by yourself, at readers here. THAT WASN’T A SNEER, THAT WAS HEADING OFF THE COMMENTS I WASN’T INTERESTED IN. But I’m not interested in how greens see themselves, I want to know how others see them. They are discussed as a group, so who are they?

I am sure you “would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts” , but you will just have to read ’em like the rest of us. TRUE ENOUGH.
My point of course;
Do you have any thoughts of your own? NO, NONE. NEVER. I JUST GO WITH THE FLOW. AND SINCE I AVOID MY OWN ECHO CHAMBERS, DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FLOW IS FOR AGW, SO I FIND OUT HERE.

So far you have offered up old talking points and lipid uninformed opinion.
Did you even bother to read the IPCC reports? HAVEN’T READ THEM COVER TO COVER.
Or even the CRU emails? NOT ALL 1000 OF THEM
Drilling down through the IPCC documents for the referenced evidence is mighty educational.
Not to mention rather shocking. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN.

Ms Slber, as far a quaisi-religious groups, use Greenpeace as a example. They oppose nuclear power, GMOs, and most industrial development. There are a plethora of similar organizations, with a similar agenda and belief system, like Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Defense Fund.
The common thing with those groups is a sort of naive adoration of “nature”, and a mistrust of anything artificial.

Pierre said: “The greens are solidly routed in eugenics, that is their bottom line. Death and destruction to the overpopulating souls at the bottom is at the route of their plans, not an unintended consequence.”

Mis- is a prefix that can be applied to many movements or extremist views. Much feminism shows a tendency to misandry while many societies and religions have definite misogynistic overtones.
That much of the environmental movement shows a hate for people is so obvious it is almost a slap in the face.
Maybe the hippies had a point with love as a philosophy, but then they hated societal norms.

1. Country in question needs reliable 24/7 access to cheap electricity.
2. Country in question is undeveloped (dirt poor) and hence does not access to local cheap natural gas.
3. Coal can be easily transported via water and rail.
4. LNG has been historically and is predicted in the future, to be roughly 2 to 2 ½ times the cost of coal, for regions that do not have access to cheap local natural gas

One-Quarter of World’s Population Lacks Electricity
An estimated 79 percent of the people in the Third World — the 50 poorest nations — have no access to electricity, despite decades of international development work.

The total number of individuals without electric power is put at about 1.5 billion, or a quarter of the world’s population, concentrated mostly in Africa and southern Asia.

The 1.5 billion figure represents an improvement over previous years, but not because of any concerted effort to expand power connections. Rather, it is a consequence of rapid urbanization with populations moving to electricity and not the other way around, said Fatih Birol, IEA’s chief economist.

“This is very bad and is something that the energy community and others should be ashamed of,” Birol said. The amount of electricity consumed in one day in all sub-Saharan Africa, minus South Africa, is about equal to that consumed in New York City, an indicator of the huge gap in electricity usage in the world.

Kristi,
How many times have you seen a statistic presented as a proportion without any underlying data to put it in perspective? When you do encounter that sort of thing, your BS meter should peg, if it doesn’t then it’s time for a statistics refresher.

What do you mean by “underlying data”? Absolute numbers? The sources used?

Whether proportions or absolute numbers or both is most appropriate depends on the data being presented and the target audience. When you are talking about “75% of global population” it is obvious what the numbers are. I don’t understand your complaint.

WHO’s numbers state 3.2 m deaths “deaths every year as a result of household exposure to smoke from dirty cookstoves and fuels” on one page and “Exposure to smoke from cooking fires causes 4.3 million premature deaths each year,” on another.

So why does the GWPF say giving people better cookstoves is a gimmick? Do these people think that once the electric line finally make it to their villages they are going to be able to afford to cook with electricity? Or want to do so?

WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY GOING TO COME FROM FOR WESTERN-STYLE DEVELOPMENT? Get real! Stop thinking from the perspective that Ameristyle is the best for everyone. Start thinking about the people you are supposedly so worried about the left victimizing, and the conditions they encounter. You really think it’s so cheap to build power plants and import fuel and build power grids for highly dispersed communities? Who will pay for it??? There’s not much of a tax base, and there’s often corruption. America and other developed countries are incredibly fortunate to have the resources they do,

I SUPPORT coal/gas plants where there is a need of ample, dependable power, supplemented by renewables where possible, economical in the long term, and appropriate for the situation. Ease fuel burden on forests, and they can revert to carbon sinks. Innovate and plan according to demands of the situation with the present and future in mind, including the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. This means listening to what the people want and need and educating them about their options, not assuming our way is best. Educate them about sustainability practices that have worked in similar situations? You betcha. What’s wrong with sustainability?

Does that seems so ridiculous? Would I be depriving people of health and well-being? Coercing them? Am I a misanthrope? An elitist leftist hypocrite?

Kristi, the money is going to come from their own development, just like it funded our development. Do you think those in the poor nations aren’t capable of doing much of the work themselves?

And this seriously makes no sense as a position; “I SUPPORT coal/gas plants where there is a need of ample, dependable power”. Could you please explain when, in an advanced technological civilisation there ISN’T a need for ample, dependable power?

It is adequate in this context to recall that the former UN Executuve Secretary of the Commission for Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, declared that the goal of the green movement is to destroy capitalism, not to protect nature.

Seen this first hand while in Africa along with GMO restrictions and the EU not allowing it’s companies to invest in modern farming practices in Africa. If they do they will loss government granst, support and wwill be dstroyed by the marixst left. The left feels the same power that Stalin did killing the inocent. The left is no different than Stalin just using porpaganda to kill all these people instead of guns.

“EU not allowing it’s companies to invest in modern farming practices in Africa”

I don’t know the background of this, but to play devil’s advocate (my natural role!), I can imagine large companies going, buying up big chunks of land, displacing those who live there and taking away their living. Gone would be the small farmer, just as happened in America. At the same time, these companies, with their machines, chemical fertilizers and pesticides could create environmental havoc if they weren’t regulated. Then, if they made a profit, that would go back to European investors rather than to the community. Of course, there has to be investment for development, but the social and environmental results should be considered.

I recognize the need for technological advancement in farming. Those farmers who are already there should decide what they want to do, not some faceless corporation 5000 miles away.

You are not ‘playing devils advocate’, Kristi.
You are playing a fool.
Your imaginary scenarios are not “just as happened in America.” Not. Even. Close.

I grew up on a farm in America’s heartland. The farming community where I grew up has changed over the decades as successful family farms grew larger and less efficient farmers could not compete and sold out. In other cases, the farmer had no heirs or their heirs did not want to farm, so they sold their family farm to the highest bidder when it came time to retire. Most often, the buyer was one of their immediate neighbors as the proximity provided efficiencies of scale that remote buyers could not achieve.

That is capitalism in action. That is the economic reality of life in rural America. The farms weren’t ‘bought up by large corporations 5000 miles away’. They were bought up by more efficient farmers, more profitable capitalist farmers! And the use of larger machines, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides did not create ‘environmental havoc’. They created more efficient and more productive farms with improved top soils and higher crop yields, to economically feed a hungry world!

You say you are a capitalist… but your deceptive reframing of reality into your imaginary scenarios are the artifices of a mewling socialist. Either you do not know what a capitalist is….. or you are being deliberately disingenuous. One thing is certain. You don’t know reframing from farming, in America’s heartland!

I’m not against increased farming efficiency or GMOs. I’m not necessarily against European investment in African farms, but I think it’s important that the West avoids economic colonialism. These nations need to make their own decisions and mistakes. We can help with education and economic assistance, but going from small-scale farming to international corporate agriculture is too big a jump and could be disruptive to community structure and force people to move to cities. For some that may be a good thing – TV, washing machines, cars, higher education…. But choosing to go is different from being forced off the land by big business.

And think about America. We live a long time, sure, but we also have high rates of divorce, depression, suicide, incarceration, drug addiction, income disparity…and the country is so divided that political differences are breaking up relationships. Life is not just about length, but about quality. This may sound hokey, but people evolved in close contact with nature, and I wonder sometimes if urbanization and the rat race of modern capitalist, materialist society has has a negative impact on our mental health.

Capitalism is the best of the options, but just as socialism and Marxism are too idealistic to be practical in human society, so is capitalism in its raw, free-market, unregulated form. It naturally tends to concentrate wealth in the hands of few. If it were only a matter of people moving up in the world and earning higher incomes, that would be one thing. We instead have a society in which there is no possibility of equality of opportunity (or outcome, of course). OK, I can live with that – that’s normal, human society – but if we are going to accept an economic/social/political system that is inherently unequal and maintains inequality from generation to generation, we have a responsibility to make sure the needs of the poor are met. They are the losers in the system, and it’s not because the poor are inherently less able or lazy. Poverty breeds poverty. The market has no conscience, and won’t provide for them. Charities don’t have the resources to do so.

Nor is it healthy to have a society with an ultra-wealthy class that wields much of America’s political power. Both those on the left and right feel like they aren’t being heard by those in power – depending on who it is. They feel ignored, angry, hateful, victimized, unrepresented, disempowered.

The sense of entitlement is pervasive: Everyone thinks he **deserves** to have a comfy, middle-class lifestyle. Most Americans don’t appreciate how extraordinarily fortunate we are. We just want more. Most Americans don’t think much about how we came to be in the position we are. We know the history, but that just history, right?

Now we are in a position to cooperate with the rest of the world to slow down the effects of climate change and help those who will feel its greatest effects. But half the country refuses to do anything at all. They are not only unwilling to make any sacrifice (even $6 a person to stay in the Paris Accord), they want to defund current programs – educational, data-gathering, research, energy diversification – to help prepare for the future.

Because it’s all supposedly a conspiracy! And that is by far the dumbest argument in the climate change debate, showing absolutely no clue what it means to be the kind of scientist who values the search for truth as much as finding it, and who values science not just for its own sake but for its contribution to society, humanity and/or the planet. I went into science to make a contribution, and because I am passionate about the process of learning and discovery. I’ve never met a scientist who was much different.

“And the use of larger machines, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides did not create ‘environmental havoc’. They created more efficient and more productive farms with improved top soils and higher crop yields, to economically feed a hungry world!”

All this requires capital. One has to be realistic about the situation. America’s Heartland is not mountainous tropical monsoon or semi-desert or savannah. It has deep, fertile prairie soils. There aren’t Elephants and hippos to worry about destroying one’s crops. …And still the farming industry is subsidized, and still there are problems with erosion, siltation, fertilizer runoff and pesticide resistance.

Well, I wasn’t intending to do so, but you got a glimpse of my political/economic views; they are more complex and nuanced, but I owe no one here an explanation.

“You say you are a capitalist… but your deceptive reframing of reality into your imaginary scenarios are the artifices of a mewling socialist.” FU. I’m sick of being called a socialist. You don’t know me anywhere near well enough to tell me I’m something I say I’m not, and the fact that you do so just makes you a fool in my eyes, too biased to carry on an interesting, civil discussion.

&Kristi
The most important statement you made and there is a glimmer of hope for you in the realization

But half the country refuses to do anything at all. They are not only unwilling to make any sacrifice (even $6 a person to stay in the Paris Accord), they want to defund current programs – educational, data-gathering, research, energy diversification – to help prepare for the future.

There are a number of reasons for the refusal but the main one probably comes down to the fact they aren’t in my country and hence not my responsibility which comes down to patriotism. All countries have fought wars, had disputes and had other bad experiences like corruption in foreign aide and you just want to ignore all that. Most also see their country like a rescue ship it has a fixed number of seats and they can only take so many before the whole thing goes under, that is a very real risk to them. They form part of a group of fears and concerns many people have.

You don’t want to talk about the problems or address the issues you want to enforce it on them and so in democracies you get smashed at the polls. That is what is happening in Europe and USA.

The same problem exists for CAGW you have people that don’t want to do anything (they accept CAGW) and yet you lump them as deniers because they don’t want to do anything.

What you actually have to say on the issues in your posts strongly suggest that isn’t true. Whether you intend to deceive everyone else on this forum or you have deceived yourself is the only question left unanswered in regards to whether or not you are a capitalist.

Don’t the architects of the AGW fraud intend to reduce the world population, beginning with the poorest citizens – the ‘useless eaters’?

“A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells, the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions.” – Prof. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb

“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.” – Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies

“[T]he resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion.” – Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind

“One America burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say in order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it’s just as bad not to say it.” – Jacques Cousteau, UNESCO Courier

“The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.” – Jeremy Rifkin, New York Times journalist on climate change

“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

“Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.” – Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis.” – David Rockefeller, Club of Rome executive manager

“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” – emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” – Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.” – Club of Rome

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.” – Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.” – Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony, climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” -Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment

“UN Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL.” ~ Rosa Koire, liberal CA activist & former supporter of AGWhttp://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com

One can always find stupid quotes. To take those stupid quotes and pretend that they represent
the ideas of those who support AGW theory is just as stupid. I’m so sick of hearing about Paul Ehrlich! Al Gore!

“Don’t the architects of the AGW fraud intend to reduce the world population, beginning with the poorest citizens – the ‘useless eaters’?”

There were no architects of AGW fraud. It was and is a continuation of science begun in the 19th C., a gradual accumulation of scientific evidence from theory, observation, experimentation and modelling. In the 50s, 60s and 70s researchers in the fossil fuel industry were finding the same things as everyone else.

The fraud came when the conservative American public was targeted and lied to in the effort to nullify the authority of science. How about these quotes, all from one source, 1998 API Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan (API = American Petroleum Institute)

“The climate change theory being advanced by the treaty supporters is based primarily on forecasting models with a very high degree of uncertainty. In fact, it not known for sure whether (a) climate change actually is occurring, or (b) if it is, whether humans really have an influence on it.”
>>>Of course, this is not the case at all. Both these had been amply demonstrated by the time of the Kyoto Treaty.
…
“Unless ‘climate change’ becomes a non-issue, meaning that the Kyoto proposal is defeated and there are no further initiatives to thwart the threat of global change, there may be no moment when we can declare victory for our efforts.”
>>>>No initiatives to thwart the threat of AGW? In other words, there is a threat. This comes after saying that the science is uncertain – but that is irrelevant to the goal. In other words, the truth doesn’t matter – but I’m interpreting for you, which i shouldn’t do – intelligent readers will see the implications of the quotes here. Look up the context, too!

…”Upon this tableau, the Global Climate Science Communications Team (GCSCT)
developed an action plan to inform the American public that science does not support
the precipitous actions Kyoto would dictate, thereby providing a climate for the right
policy decisions to be made.”
>>>The science is declared wrong so that the right policy decisions can be made? But what if the science is right? That means that the “right” policy decisions are wrong.

The workings of Climate Science is the problem. It wants to make serious and big real world changes yet wants to play under soft social science rules. If someone proposed some nuclear facility in an area that affected millions of people do you really think I could get away with discussion in the manner of climate science. It would have to engage and discuss every concern of the people affected including the irrational and imaginary.

What climate science has tried to do is claim authority, consensus and morality to circumvent all discussion. Many of the scientists have become activists and seen as corrupting it’s peer review system to be CAGW pal review and simply denigrating any opposing view.

Nothing will really happen with the field until it addresses the issues and starts acting like a proper hard science.

LdB
“What climate science has tried to do is claim authority, consensus and morality to circumvent all discussion.

“Many of the scientists have become activists and seen as corrupting it’s peer review system to be CAGW pal review and simply denigrating any opposing view.”

I see no reason at all to believe this. I’ve seen no evidence of it whatsoever. The peer review system was corrupted by skeptics, resulting in the resignation of editors in one instance and the publisher ending the publication of a journal in another. I think there’s even a third case, but I can’t remember.

Science is dependent on opposing views, it thrives on them. They stimulate discussion and debate. They are necessary to scientific advancement. Scientists WANT to be able to show something new, and publishers want to publish it. But that doesn’t mean they are going to publish bad science just because it disagrees with the mainstream. And that’s the problem – not disagreement, but bad science. That happens when you get astrophysicists writing papers about tree rings.

There is a scientific consensus among those with the most expertise, those who publish climate science research. It’s been demonstrated multiple times, in multiple ways. To refuse to believe this is simply putting blinders on.

” It wants to make serious and big real world changes yet wants to play under soft social science rules. ” You don’t seem to understand the array of methods used in hard science. There may be soft science done around here, but not in the published climate science literature…or perhaps you’d like to offer a few examples of what you consider “soft social science rules” in the climate literature?

There you have just because you can’t or don’t want to see the problem you won’t accept it. Yet anyone who has the same issue with climate science your reject. You complain about “astrophysicists writing papers about tree rings” and yet are happy to have things like mathematicians and statisticians writing papers about physics. See the problem you have no consistency you are just the usual biased CAGW believer.

You then say there is scientific consensus between the experts none of whom have a degree in physics and most couldn’t even work there way thru a physics problem. I always get a laugh with Nick Stokes who tries to play that he understand physics yet manages to fall into every hole because he hasn’t got a clue about QM and Radiative transfer is a quantum process.

Next you go on to claim I have no idea of methods used in hard science and one could ask what basis you have to make that claim? See another stupid unsupported claim made by you as an activist to try to claim authority in the argument.

We could discuss the problems with Soft social sciences and there histories of getting themselves into problems but it seems pointless because you have claimed you are the authority and I am now just some pleb :-)

“The energy ladder seeks to reproduce the experience of rich countries, where households moved away from biofuels and were increasingly connected to electric grids or district heating systems, solving the IAP problem for good.”

So, follow in the footsteps of Chinese development, so there’s outdoors as well as indoor pollution that they are now trying to deal with partly by switching to renewables?

Who are all these people pushing countries to use no fossil fuels?

Does this mean the anti-environmental movement will help developing countries build power plants or simply complain when others try to help people get energy?

What is the timeline for getting the rural poor on the grid and hooked up to fossil fuel power?

How many of these countries have coal or natural gas deposits? Are they reliant on others for their fuel?

What if countries WANT to follow a different development model? Why is the American one thought appropriate for other countries, especially considering the long-term? Fossil fuel reserves are, after all, not unlimited, and if 8 billion people all start using them like Americans do, how long will they remain less expensive than solar?

“…the poorest people are being given gimmicks like cookstoves, which make little difference to air quality, and solar panels, which are little more than a joke.”

What makes the stoves “gimmicks”? Why are solar panels a joke? Even a couple panels and a battery can give residents of a small village enough to run a computer and a pump, charge cell phones, and give some light after dark. Quicker than waiting for someone to get them on the grid.

It’s not an either fossil fuels or renewables question. Fossil fuels are the most appropriate choice in some circumstances. However, that doesn’t mean EVERYTHING has to be fossil fuels – that’s not the best answer either, apart from the CO2 emissions question.

Why is it that the same report that bashes environmentalism tries to convey the message that the GWPF is so pollution-conscious? It’s mind-boggling that skeptics are now blaming environmentalists for not caring about people at the same time they push policies that only benefit themselves and refuse to contribute as a nation to international efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Anyway, here’s a nice little report telling skeptics how morally superior they are compared to environmentalists. That should go over well, I’m sure. It’s not a competition for who can do the most good, it’s a battle of who’s most self-righteous. The left is better at virtue-signaling, the right is better at blame and insult.

I’ve heard climate change is now the most accurate predictor of political stance. Better than abortion, gay marriage or immigration. It’s so deeply entrenched, it’s hard to know what would change it. Science can’t, obviously. It would have to be political.

I agree. Kristi’s repeated self righteous screeds here illustrate her intolerance and hypocrisy. She asks for a conversation, then abuses those who choose to converse with her. She professes to be a capitalist but her words in many of her posts are aligned with socialists. When her attempts at ‘reframing’ and ‘story telling’ fail logical examinations, she even resorts to profanity and direct personal attack.

There is no need for anyone to attempt ‘reframing’ her comments. Her comments adequately frame her, without need for any modifications.

The location of the power plants was at least as much of a problem as the fuel source.

Which potential problem was known. But governments Labour and Tory didn’t want to make the hard choices to shut down those close in, build more farther away from London and powerlines to connect to the grid.

Nope. The solution was Government.
Capitalism was quite happy to have local deliveries of coal to households.
Capitalism was never going to invest the huge amounts of capital to build power plants. The return was too slow.
Infrastructure needs investment. Only Government will spend that kind of money.

There once was a happy, well traveled CO2 molecule that began to hear stories of other worlds where friends had dwelt, many of them horrifying. This started after suddenly startled by something unseen that changed one’s state, at first stimulating pleasurable excitement.

Cautionary tales came from getting too close to the ground, disappearing into prisons where your structure was torn apart, C going into trillions of masses of crowded molecules where most were attached to boring C neighbors, O spit out as waste. Even if fortunate enough to find others, it might be the smelly S one, or even a toxic one like Cl or worse. Cu sounded better, but the danger was ending up in a nasty worm–UCK.

This offense came to pass when sucked up by harmless looking strange beings with bright, attractive green colors. Hearsay produced stories that then more green abounded. Some sly ones hid their green, which is where the devilish deed that stripped off the O and spewed it back into the atmosphere, was fabricated. A few became minorities in compounds with others like P and N, becoming martyrs, killing the green devils, sometimes not so well.

During a dark storm a solution was whispered from a shady molecule, a SOCIETY FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF FREEDOM FOR CARBON DIOXIDE AND OTHER DIVERSE GASES and one for PREVENTION OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ATMOSPHERIC GASES. Because of the tempest it was difficult to communicate, but it sounded like there were serious problems because they had tried to merge. Something about not reaching a consensus.

Then the hope arose of losing the excitement therefore becoming again dumb but happy. Some lived happily even after! Others not.

Oh, come now, David! Do you really, honestly believe that? Is that what the report says? And even if it did, are you so gullible as to think people so thoughtless and heartless?

It seems like the left is simply dehumanized here. They are not people, they are a list of terrible characteristics. It’s like a game to come up with new, original ways of saying how stupid, thoughtless and immoral/amoral they are. It’s a gap in understanding. The left doesn’t understand the right, either. It’s self-righteousness, ignorance, complacency and plenty of echo-chamber and confirmation bias, and it’s tearing America apart. Don’t any of you have Democrat friends? Are they blood-sucking fiends?

Yes Kristi, they are thoughtless. they listen to one side and go from there without bothering to investigate further. They back policies that will kill millions every year, so why don’t they investigate? Because they simply do not care.

Moreover many are simply stupid and do not understand that other places do not live like we do in the West. They don’t know that people, hundreds of millions of people are cooking over animal dung fires, and they don’t WANT to know. It gets in the way of believing in their own social consciousness and self worth.

They really do want people in poor nations to have a choice about their own development, so long as that choice is that they say “No” to development. They rail against “economic Imperialism” while ignoring the fact that without that Western development money it’s 6 year olds that are mining cobalt with their bare hands. That’s the cobalt that makes those wonderful green windmills even possible. “Green” power is built on the bare backs of people treated worse than slaves.

I sus’d this out in the early stages of the Global Warm…ahhh we really meant Climate Change all along movement. These are the same people that lauded Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” for getting DDT banned and killing millions of poor human ‘beans’ along the way. The same people that Lauded Ehriich’s Population Bomb and quietly applauded as millions died from malaria to keep their population precious resources in check. In order to assuage their guilt and virtue signal how much they love those poor people in Africa they hold telethons and pat themselves on the back for raising millions in order to put Mosquito nets in every hut rather than running water, electricity and and chickens in the pot. Hell is they sprayed with DDT they could use those millions to get fresh water to every village. How do you spell this type of environmentalist? E-L-I-T-E L-E-F-T-I-S-T H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E

Bill Powers
“These are the same people that lauded Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” for getting DDT banned and killing millions of poor human ‘beans’ along the way. The same people that Lauded Ehriich’s Population Bomb and quietly applauded as millions died from malaria to keep their population precious resources in check. ”

We banned DDT in America, not worldwide, and we didn’t have malaria when we did it. Other countries did so, too, at least for some applications, but that doesn’t mean its use was eliminated. We got to keep populations of the national bird, symbol of the country. You cannot say how many lives would have been saved if DDT hadn’t been banned in other countries, since there are many ways to mitigate against malaria and DDT isn’t going to save everyone. It is now used in limited quantities, mostly in and around homes.

“‘No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored,’ she wrote in ‘Silent Spring.’ The trouble, in her view, was that DDT and other chemicals were employed so liberally that “the insect enemy” developed resistance to them in fairly short order and was thus ‘made actually stronger by our efforts.’
…
“Insect resistance to DDT, many scientists say, was a major reason for a sharp decline in its use around the world: Why bother spraying if the bugs would just shrug it off? Experts also blamed reduced spending on anti-malaria projects by governments and international organizations — not Carson — for a resurgence of the disease after 1972.”https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/us/rachel-carson-ddt-malaria-retro-report.html (And before shrugging it off because it’s in the NYT, provide evidence saying they are wrong! I hate the “”many scientists say…” and “Experts…” but it’s quite plausible that pesticide resistance was a factor)

Environmentalists did not kill people, malaria did.

“quietly applauded as millions died from malaria” That’s just sick. You have a sick mind if you can believe that of so many of your fellow humans.

What’s really hypocritical is your blaming others for people dying, but not giving serious consideration to what will happen to those affected by climate change, simply ignoring any responsibility we have to prevent it.

MarkW
You: “… you tried to pretend that there was nothing stopping the use of DDT in Africa.
What a hypocrite you are”.

Me: “…if DDT hadn’t been BANNED IN OTHER COUNTRIES”
And you, Mark, are an annoying little gnat. Even when I try to be civil you pester me with obnoxious whining. It’s funny, actually, I’m developing an affection for you. You are, after all, dependable, and it’s flattering that you think enough about me to be so incredibly wrong so often.

Hans Rosling [R.I.P. 1948-2017] was a champion of the poor and took aim directly at the passive-aggressive hypocrisy of the greens as others pussyfooted around the topic. He managed to do this in a guileless non-disparaging way. Perhaps he likened it to the phenomenon where city-dwellers, none of which are evil, yet find it easy to avert their gaze and collectively abstain from rendering assistance. But if a single individual steps forth boldly and decisively what ever dark force they had been wrestling evaporates, and they render assistance fervently as a group.

Rosling was hoping to be that lone individual rushing in to make bare (though statistics, congenial persuasion and persistence) these unpleasant facts, that the charcoal burning poor of the world desire to have electrical grids as we do, and we have actually been standing in the way of their progress.

And the remaining five billion, how do they wash? Or, to be more precise, how do most of the women in the world wash? Because it remains hard work for women to wash. They wash like this: by hand. It’s a hard, time-consuming labor, which they have to do for hours every week. And sometimes they also have to bring water from far away to do the laundry at home, or they have to bring the laundry away to a stream far off. And they want the washing machine. They don’t want to spend such a large part of their life doing this hard work with so relatively low productivity. And there’s nothing different in their wish than it was for my grandma. Look here, two generations ago in Sweden — picking water from the stream, heating with firewood and washing like that. They want the washing machine in exactly the same way.

[…] but when I lecture to environmentally-concerned students, they tell me, “No, everybody in the world cannot have cars and washing machines.” How can we tell this woman that she ain’t going to have a washing machine? And then I ask my students, I’ve asked them — over the last two years I’ve asked, “How many of you doesn’t use a car?” And some of them proudly raise their hand and say, “I don’t use a car.” And then I put the really tough question: “How many of you hand-wash your jeans and your bed sheets?” And no one raised their hand. Even the hardcore in the green movement use washing machine.

So how come something that everyone used and they think others will not? What is special with this?

In that brief moment where students who had moments before repeated the mantra that everyone cannot afford ‘our’ energy economy, harshly felt the glaring light of Rosling’s ‘tough question’ — he had his answer. He spent the remainder of his life pursuing it anyway.

I have always felt this way, but Rosling did change my mind on one thing. I used to believe along with many, that the most altruistic thing we might helped Africa achieve by now are what we consider to be the ‘training wheels’ of modern civilization, a paved network of continental highways and a dense network of regional railroads. That is just how it happened historically in Europe and North America. But now I realize that while these bring real economic benefit, they are NOT the ‘greatest gift’ TODAY, the single thing would touch and improve the most lives. Our greatest gift to rural Africa would be to help it to electrify its villages from a central corridor of power plants, regardless of the present state of its roads and rail. Think about this. To electrify a village you need only what we consider to be a ‘logging trail’ through difficult terrain. Once pylons are set upkeep is simple. There is no need to lay several million miles of permanent road to achieve this.

AND OF COURSE, no capitalist venture into deepest Africa would ever consider electrifying it before providing it with a transport network for ‘goods and resources’. Of what value would it be to them? Yet our United Nations initiatives for infrastructure tout the road as the supreme gift. You see photos of poor people walking along paved roads everywhere carrying stuff on their heads. They look really grateful. Yet efficient grid electricity is the most <ialtruistic thing that we could possibly deliver.

So it’s no surprise that the greens are trying to push ‘energy Happy Meal toys’ like solar panels and small wind turbines. Some of them must realize this, but half-baked solutions are only things included in their kid’s meal of ideas. If only they would try to run their washing machines off them, how quickly would the world change.

I take no prisoners and call these people out directly. Those doing this are in fact city-dwellers, I believe the demographics would prove this. They are so firmly nested in modern infrastructure they cannot perceive it as the miracle that it is. In our modern time there is an evil that is patterned after the classic ‘provincial attitude’. It begins with looking down on others, to the point where you need to grasp for excuses to maintain the illusion you are superior.

Hocus Locus,
Roads/transmission lines is not either/or, and it’s certainly not for us to decide, sitting comfortably in front of our computers. Villages that are cut off during the wet season due to flooding and wash-outs may want a paved road (especially since rain events are getting more intense). Large villages near the grid may be able to afford the transmission lines and paying for the electricity and upkeep (e.g. keeping forest back from lines). Small, isolated communities may be better off with a couple solar panels and a 12V battery, so at least they can run a computer, pump and phones and a couple lights. I was listening to a journalist talking seeing examples of this, time and again, and what a boon it was.

“…you need only what we consider to be a ‘logging trail’ through difficult terrain.” !!! That’s ALL, huh? Ever lived in the mountainous wet tropics?

And you’re talking about washing machines? Huh I went for a couple years without a washing machine or dryer, and it wasn’t so bad.

The mistake is in making any broad generalizations for what is best, and in believing that we are the best ones to decide. The right are obviously no less prone to this than the left.

” They are so firmly nested in modern infrastructure they cannot perceive it as the miracle that it is.”
…And you can’t seem to understand how amazingly fortunate we are, and that the rest of the world has problems to contend with that we don’t. Our world cannot be replicated just through the desire to do it.

Have you spent summers living in a tent in the forest, a 45 min boat ride from the nearest people? I have. Have you lived in a shed? I have – twice. Spent years working outside in natural areas? Have you spent time in developing nations? Do you make a point of talking to those who come from them? Do you read the literature to see what they are really like?

Don’t be so quick to assume that “they” (me) are all nested in modern infrastructure. It’s all these ridiculous generalizations people make that turn humans into illusions, or delusions.

” In our modern time there is an evil that is patterned after the classic ‘provincial attitude’. It begins with looking down on others, to the point where you need to grasp for excuses to maintain the illusion you are superior.”

And that is EXACTLY what you are doing! You are castigating the left to show that you are correct, but you have not demonstrated that you are any more correct that them! It’s the same old, We are going to copy us because our society is best for everyone.

“A significant proportion of respondents [39,000 in 12 African countries] reported that their off-grid electricity solution did not fulfill any of their power needs, including almost two-thirds of Rwandans with off-grid systems.

[…] “In fact, demand for a grid connection is significantly higher among off-grid households than those with no electricity at all.”

They have tasted the off-grid fruit, and it is bitter. It will not wash their clothes in hot water. It will neither efficiently purify/sterilize bulk water nor treat bulk sewage. I operate the sewer plant in a USA ‘village’ of 2800 people and what we discharge downriver is pretty much safe to drink already. This would not be possible without the superior economy of scale that electricity delivered by grid provides. It is not the only way, but is the best way human kind has achieved. I’d need a very compelling reason not to want this on Africa’s behalf.

It is this kind of cynical hypocrisy from Gang Green that lead me to “Eugenics Reborn”.
Their actions speak , their words delude.
The animosity toward poor brown people from our “saviours of the environment” has been apparent for decades.
The deliberate policy of preventing the developing world from using coal to produce cheap reliable electricity is the most blatant case of racism I have seen yet.
For modern life and the luxury of leisure that electric appliances bring, depends on cheap reliable electricity.
Refridgeration

John Robertson – Whose policy is it to prevent the developing world from using coal? You realize, don’t you, that encouraging alternatives is not the same as preventing something?

In my opinion, no sane person would contend that the developing world should use no coal. That WOULD be completely hypocritical. It’s not all or nothing, though! Don’t you see? Coal and renewables can be complementary.

As for the modern life and the appliances…first people need to eat. They need shelter and clothing and a source of income. And they need education. Phone and internet access.

Unless conservatives are willing to contribute billions in aid to help get these people electricity, blaming the left for not allowing it is just daft. And you call the others hypocritical for “denying” people who are struggling to survive access to modern appliances? Who needs vaccinations when you could have a dishwasher? Then there’s the hypocrisy of refusing to join the Paris Accord because of the economic sacrifice. Poor, destitute Americans would rather spend their money on a Starbucks latte or a burger than skip it and take our place as the world leader we once were. China is going to make a killing in the energy game – they even invest in renewable projects in the U.S.. My impression is that Spain is the second biggest playe – and they, too, have at least one project here. Why should America be left behind? We’ve got the best scientists in the world and a global market for renewable innovations. If renewables are more expensive now than coal, the answer isn’t, “well, they are worthless,” it’s to drop the price point, work to improve them and make them more efficient. Coal is costly in ways that aren’t counted in the market price, particularly in the health effects of mining and burning it – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use it at all.

Try to think realistically, not ideologically. The risk of climate change having adverse effects is very high, and it is in our best interests to slow them so we can adapt. What if millions of Floridians are displaced? Already king tides are flooding coastal neighborhoods, even in the absence of a storm.

Arggh Refrigeration saves lives,extends food and enables storage of medicines.
Unreliable “eco-friendly” power is worse than useless for the vital aspects of civilized living,water treatment,clean water delivery,sewage transfer…
I suspect many of Gang green are as clueless as they seem,as in electricity comes from the wall socket,water from a tap and money from the government as they seek food at the supermarket.
However there is no excuse for the evil we allow,when our government do-gooders interfere in other countries development, especially when the results are to deny the poor a better future.

Tom Halla,
First, you can’t lump all AGW advocates together as if they are clones and all believe and want the same things. Are all skeptics the same?

Second, although AGW advocates favor transition to more renewable energy, that doesn’t mean they are against fossil fuels. No one with any sense expects elimination of all fossil fuel use, nor is it necessary. There are other ways of lowering net emissions – increased efficiency, pubic transport, reduced use (turn down the heat and turn up the A/C, for instance, or simply turn off the TV, lights and computer when not in use), planting trees… I bet there will be new technologies developed to sequester CO2. High-capacity batteries are already in the works.

Some greenies and alarmists may say they want all renewables, I suppose, but there are always going to be fanatics – just like there are those who believe AGW is all a conspiracy. Don’t assume we warmists are all so goofy.

No, I am not lumping them all together, just the main themes of the movement. James Hansen, for example, favors nuclear. But the German Energiewende rejects nuclear, and goes for prayer wheels and solar. As does South Australia. As do Greenpeace. As do the Sierra Club. As do EDF. . . .

Kristi Silber on May 5, 2018 at 5:12 pm
WHERE IS ALL THE MONEY GOING TO COME FROM FOR WESTERN-STYLE DEVELOPMENT? Get real! Stop thinking from the perspective that Ameristyle is the best for everyone. Start thinking about the people you are supposedly so worried about the left victimizing, and the conditions they encounter. You really think it’s so cheap to build power plants and import fuel and build power grids for highly dispersed communities? Who will pay for it???
,…………….
Thank you for that. I have raised this point so often it’s ridiculous. A human forced to use smokey cooking apparatus is not going to have funds for electricity to cook, the stove to cook on, the fridge to keep food safe. Who pays for this? Who pays for the grid structure to deliver power for a few humans in a village? Who pays for the power plants? Where will the water for the turbines come from?
Unfortunately a trial of safe(?) Stoves for cooking failed to improve conditions.
Thank you Kristy for looking at this intelligently.

It was likewise nice to hear from you! It’s downright bizarre to hear all these ideas about what’s best for the developing world from people who apparently have little idea of the issues faced in many of these nations.

As you suggest, off-grid energy is sometimes the best (or only) choice even in the developed world. There are some properties in Australia that are hundreds of miles from the nearest transmission line.

“Unfortunately a trial of safe(?) Stoves for cooking failed to improve conditions.” There is much research being done trying to develop technologies that are not only efficient, cheap and low-pollution, but that are suited to what people want/need to burn. Some simply can’t afford non-biomass fuel.

2. In reference to the first quote — “gimmicks like cookstoves” — do these gimmick stoves vent smoke right back into the room or do they include exhaust flues to vent smoke and gas outside??
Surely nearly every reader has had some experience with a well designed Franklin style stove vs. one with a blocked or closed vent can appreciate the difference. The quote manages to confuse and bury the most arresting point.

3. The cited paper — “Kicking Away the Energy Ladder” does not define what indoor air pollution (IAP) is. Nor does it explain the relationship, if any, with ambient air pollution.
(A cookstove with an effective vent to the outdoors presumably reduces IAP but not ambient air pollution?)

4. The paper states:
“However, it has been agonizingly difficult – for many reasons and despite several large scale programs over the years – to bring about pollution-free indoor environments using
improved cookstoves. No large-scale cookstove program to date has achieved reductions in IAP or provided any health benefits.”

That surprising and counter intuitive result deserves a few words of explanation and context. It’s a matter of persuasive communication.
In part, I believe it is an example of why field trials are necessary to discover the subtle design issues that can make or break a new technology and successful adoption.
Unfortunately, one could some away with the impression that cookstoves are no better than open fires without a chimney or vent. Which I do not believe is the case.

5. The section on the “energy ladder” is confusing and contradictory.
I’m guessing that the type of fuel (electricity being at the top of the ladder) is the most important element.
But where does “stoves with heat storage” come into the picture?
Or structures with chimneys?
Is the Chinese “kang” a stove or a type of structure? Does the kang stove have a chimney or vent?

6. “When we bear in mind that residential heating and cooking with solid (bio)fuels remains
the root cause of almost all pollution exposure – both indoor and ambient”
I think it’s more accurate to describe it as “a root cause” rather than “the root cause”.
The implication I take away is that it’s impossible to reduce IAP /pollution exposure with well designed stove systems. That is contrary to the facts as I understand them. Better designed stoves reduce the amount of fuel burned, produce cleaner exhaust, and exhaust it outside. Thereby IAP is reduced in three ways and ambient pollution in two.
” – the health co-benefts of ever more stringent climate mitigation are revealed as wishful thinking; there is no way to reduce pollution from cooking except to switch to liquefed petroleum gas or
electricity.”
This makes the error of speaking categorically when the impact is relative.

To bad, because once the miscommunication — the communication pollution is reduced — there is a environmentally and ethically import message to convey.

Paunio:
““When we bear in mind that residential heating and cooking with solid (bio)fuels remains
the root cause of almost all pollution exposure – both indoor and ambient”

This completely ignores the ambient pollution from the burning of fossil fuels! Think of millions of Chinese walking around with masks on. I think it’s Mumbai where people are allowed to drive their cars only every second day, the pollution is so bad.

So Paunio is saying, because cook stoves are polluting, people should build more sources of pollution in hopes people don’t use stoves anymore. Makes sense, right?

Paunio:
“the gradual shift to cleaner types of fuel that underpinned the clean up of air quality in industrialised nations.” Yeah, this depends on regulation, just what the right loves to fight!

“What is worse, the greens inside and outside the development community are blaming air pollution on >>>power stations, industry and cars,<<>>cleaner transport, energy-efficient housing, power generation, industry and better municipal waste management<<< can effectively reduce key sources of ambient air pollution."

“Domestic combustion of solid (bio)fuels is by far the number one global pollution problem. 4.3 million deaths annually are directly attributable to indoor air pollution (IAP) according to the World Health Organization. ”

The WHO makes no such assertion. Let me parse this statement:

Domestic combustion of fuels refers to use in the household, not what burns outside, so let’s be clear that air pollution is not all from home use of energy,

Solid fuels has never, in any paper I have seen (and it is part of my job) referred to “solid (bio)fuels”. This is the first time I have seen such a prefix on solid fuels. The WHO has been careful to try to demonise all solid fuels on the basis that they are inherently “smoky and polluting”, a position advocated for years by one Prof Kirk Smith of UC Berkeley. He is not alone in that of course, but he is one of the most prolific authors of articles attempting to sell the concept.

Domestic combustion of solid fuels is not nearly the “number one global pollution problem.” That is just hype attached to hope.

“4.3 million deaths” is a misquote – please see the original: it is 4.3 million premature deaths. There is a world of difference between a premature death (died before the age of 86, the global expectancy for a perfect, unpolluted life) and a death caused by something. The word “attributed” is correct in this instance: attribution of contributions to a premature death are made by a committee of experts who assign the shortening of lives from 86 into 51 bins of causes. There is no medical proof for this, it is done by ‘attribution’, meaning they assign a portion of a shortened set of lives (usually an entire national population of the dead) to various contributing causes based on the science available at the time. This list is revised annually as new information comes to light.

“Indoor air pollution” is one component of all air pollution. No one can attribute indoor air pollution separately from other air pollution because the statistics do not exist to be able to do so. In consequence, they portion attributed to IAP is estimated based on a number of guesses and spotty measurement. They are using a misquote to claim that premature deaths were cause by combusting solid fuels indoors, hoping that the public and even experts are unaware of how the number was determined, and that there is no ‘there’ there. Nothing. It is entirely made up from what little inputs one can assemble.

Far more important that the misrepresentation of what is happening in the world of fake and imaginary statistics is who is behind this. I received a message this morning from the SEforAll conference in Lisbon

this past week at which the WHO has been trying to sell the idea that some fuels (all solid ones of course) are evil and some (gas and liquids but not kerosene) are ‘good and clean’. They are trying to claim that some fuels are inherently clean without testing the appliance’s ability to burn it – something no doubt strongly endorsed by Volkswagen management.

Here is a comment which I must anonymise because of the vindictive predilections of the promoters of this nonsense:

+++++
“You are exactly right on their goal that “We have to promote subsidised LPG and electricity in order to keep people safe; we can tolerate some wood stoves temporarily”.

“Such promotion is just getting stronger and louder with global LPG partnership and world LPG association’s resources and lobby behind.”
+++++

The WHO has apparently been “state-captured” by the LP Gas association, otherwise known as the fossil fuel industry, and is being used to make their product a subsidised requirement (no other way to get it to the poor save subsidy, a-la-Indonesia and India). Even Kenya, impoverished as its people are, is giving LP Gas a pass on import taxes.

They claim that kerosene, which runs fine in aircraft, is inherently polluting, so is to be regarded as “a dirty fuel”. Coal is anathema, though for the first time, following the ICCI/CCAC Conference in Warsaw last year, the Lisbon meeting grudgingly admits that some coals can be burned very cleanly and might be tolerated after individual testing. That is (a) a sea change and (b) a direct result of cutting edge work in Asia and Africa. I was in Potchefstroom last month to demonstrate how to build domestic coal stoves with 99.97% combustion efficiency of bituminous and sub-bituminous coals. Match that, Volkswagen.

Note: There is an oft-cited WHO paper talking about 4.3m premature deaths (2012) and a well-hidden one that incorrectly uses the term “deaths” (2013) which stands uncorrected. If anyone shows you the 2013 citation, be sure to point out it is a mis-citation of the 2012 document. In the effort by the LP Gas Association to associate all solid fuels and kerosene (their main competitor) with the death of millions, it is becoming more common to cite the mis-cite rather than the original article.

Finally: The worst pollutant on the plant at the moment causing the most disease, disability and general ill-health is probably sugar or high fructose corn syrup. I willingly take my daily dose with coffee.

Another example is “fair trade coffee” and other goods. To be in the fair trade network, you cannot mechanize, expand, or modernize your business. They want the african farmers to suit their tastes, not make the most money.

We can continue to endlessly complain, explain, comment and whine about all the perversities of the “Green” movement with no significant effect, or we can recognize that a way to counteract and eventually end them is by concentrating all efforts on pointing out the lack of any definitive scientific proof that co2 causes warming, i.e., eliminate the single key underpinning of all their claims.